Reciprocating piston liquid pumps are well known in the art, and are employed to pump and/or dispense various products. Many well known reciprocating piston liquid pumps are found in desktop dispensers wherein a dispensing spout is pressed down to dispense product onto a hand held under the dispensing spout. Soaps, lotions and sanitizers are among the most common products dispensed with such pumps.
These pumps are also employed in environments other than desktop dispensers. For instance, it is common to find a reciprocating piston liquid pump in a wall-mounted dispenser wherein a push bar is pressed to actuate the pump and dispense product onto a hand held under the push bar. In these dispensers, the push bar typically pivots at a pivot point and provides arms that operatively engage the reciprocating piston of the pump such that pressing on and releasing the push bar causes the reciprocating movement of the piston necessary for dispensing the product from a product container to which the pump is secured. Because the stroke length of the reciprocating piston is dictated by the distance the push bar arms move, the desired stroke length can be achieved either by designing the push bar to pivot through a necessary arc, or by sizing the arms to engage the pump at a significant distance fro the push bar, thus permitting a smaller arc. The arms extending from the push bar engage a linearly moving actuating carriage engaging the reciprocating piston, so, with longer arms, more linear motion is achieved with a smaller push bar arc. However, because lever arms are employed between the push bar and the actuation carriage, the mechanical advantage offered by the push bar must be significant enough that the user of the dispenser does not have to push too hard to dispense product. Thus, the push bar of the prior art is typically long in length and travels through a significant rotational arc. As a result, the dispenser can take up a larger footprint.
The present invention seeks to address the need in the art for actuating mechanisms for reciprocating piston liquid pumps for wall-mounted dispensers wherein the push bar dimensions are smaller and the arc length is decreased such that the wall-mounted dispenser can occupy a smaller footprint.